The Burrow

My daughter called the after-surgery-photo I sent next level . My husband texted Wow, that's some bandage. The puffiness moves around my face; this morning I woke up looking like Donald Duck. The small potato stuck to the middle of my face did nothing to improve the situation. Nothing hurts.  The bottom of a 16oz Costco water bottle fits perfectly over my eye, cooling above and below while avoiding my eyeball.  15 minutes on, 45 minutes off, my arm holding the bottle propped on a pillow when TBG's forearm starts to wobble.  It's an all hands on deck situation. The bandage is a distraction covering the occasional itch.  It's in my line of sight, which makes typing and reading a brain teaser.  I can ignore it only for so long before I have to cast my gaze to the horizon.  I've been listening to podcasts while football players run across the television; neither activity requires much of my eyeballs. I'm writing this Saturday morning.  Tomorrow I remove th...

I'm fine.   It was as pleasant as something like that can be.  Everyone was helpful and thoughtful and skilled.  Only one pass of the scalpel was needed; I was home before noon.   I am sporting a  gigantic bandage in the middle of my face.  I look  like J. P. Morgan.  That's the worst of it.  I'm a very lucky person. 

I am to be at the office at 6:30am, for Mohs on my nose, as the rhyme goes.   It is not life threatening , but last week the dermatologist told me not to wait to see the surgeon, so here I go.  It's an out-patient procedure in their stand alone, Medicare approved, state of the art clinic located 7 minutes from our house.   It takes 2 hours to develop and analyze the tissue samples.  If there aren't clear margins, they go back for another slice.... and so on and so on, in two hour segments, until the doctor sends me home, cancer free.   TBG insists on driving me there and back.  He would want company for the duration;  I just want to be left alone.  It took all my persuasive powers to convince him that watching him sit in a chair for 3 or 4 or 6 or 8 hours was not the way I chose to spend the afternoon.  I am quite used to being the one doing the sitting; from personal experience I advised him to make better use of his time. Wha...

They called me The Walking Dictionary in elementary school;  I wrote about this in one of my earliest posts. Daddooooo never used a fifty cent word when a two dollar one would do; I seem to have inherited that trait. I rarely come upon a word I don't know, or can't figure out.  Immiserate , for example.  I never saw or heard it before, but from the context I could deduce its meaning.  At first I thought that Harry Litman was showing off in The New Republic, writing about the prosecutions of innocent enemies whom Trump simply wants to immiserate . But it's a really good word, isn't it? In that same article, he gave me another new word.  I was merrily reading along until I stumbled over this:  Descriptions of (diGenova) typically append the kenning “Trump loyalist” or “longtime Trump ally.”  Kenning?  Did it carry positive or negative connotations? Did it imply that the phrase was trite?  Did it have something to do with the quotation ma...

If the monsoon is generous, as it has been,  Tucson is blessed with an abundant second bloom of our summer flowers.   The hanging basket is sporting an impressive beard.  The zinnias, after a serious haircut, rewarded me  and the birds.  But the show stopper,  grown from a small seed,  smiles at us from every room in the house.  For scale, that's a 4' wall, on the far side of the far side of the back yard.  It's special from a distance,  but up close,  it's spectacular That was two days ago, in the morning. As the sun comes up, light sneaks around the corner of the garage and she turns her face to greet it. I left my oatmeal to capture her joy.   This afternoon,  just before it rained, she looked a little forlorn.  Can you see the whorls? I spent a lovely time with them this afternoon,  remembering TBG  and Big Cute...

(I wrote this last Thursday before noticing that it would be published on 9/11... and I had a post for that.) The 49'ers flew all the way to Australia to open their season.  Since the boys have been looking forward to this with great anticipation, you can guess what is on the television. Wanting to be close to my sweetie, I am on the couch, typing to you.  I can't say that the football is front and center in my mind, but some piece of my consciousness is registering the highs and lows, the kicks and the picks, TBG's groans and shouted advice. I usually take out my hearing aids when football is on the screen; it's white noise that way.  But tonight is the Congressional debate for my district.  It's streaming on PBS and I'm listening and watching on my phone.   Or, at least, that was the plan.   The moderator is delightful.  The candidates are not.  Neither has a voice worthy of settling in next to my brain.  In fact, they are both an...

I posted this on  September 11, 2011.   It was the 10th anniversary of the falling of the towers.  It was also Christina-Taylor Green's 10th birthday, just  9 months and 3 days after she died, holding my hand. Today, once again we are marking a milestone in the passage of time by remembering those who were lost.  That is right and appropriate, as CTG would be the first to tell you.  She understood the importance of history and remarkable events.  She believed she was put here for a purpose, that her birthdate inevitably tied her to the United States, that she was meant to do something.  No one who knew her would dispute that claim.   This week, I was at a loss for words, just as I was 15 years ago.  So, I went back to the source.  It still rings true. . ***** I am at a loss.  I have no words.  I've tried all day.  TBG has offered suggestions, Little Cuter told me to stop apologizing for crying for no reason....

(Written on Tuesday) Yesterday was Labor Day.  Today there were more than 100 degrees dancing through Tucson.   TBG needed a sweatshirt at lunch; he's happily taking his hormonally challenged temperature regulator out these days.  I wore a short-sleeved, light knit sweater and cotton shorts; black shorts, not the white skirt I left hanging in my closet.    I really like that skirt.  I spent all summer wishing I were wearing it, but it is not a comfortable sitting in the hospital skirt.  Now, when I have the time and the company, the calendar is screwing with me. I wear outfits that Little Cuter describes as Mom, the world needs more people like you ... through her laughter.  If it's comfortable I'll wear it, no matter that I bought it for Big Cuter when we were same size (he was in 5th grade).  I'm not really a trendy girl. But there are certain things that were repeated over and over again when I was a little girl, and the one abou...

After a short and annoyingly uncomfortable dermatological intersection with cryosurgery, my body and I are taking the day off to recover from the trauma. 

This is what it looked like at the end. It seemed fairly simple.  There were perforated lines to guide the scissors. Fold and pull.... I can do that. Or, perhaps not. I'm not that strong; the corner came off quite easily. Unfortunately, the gel cap was still stuck. The scissors made a careful slice around the raised plastic bubble. Not just to the edge, but all the way around. And then I had to separate the backing from the bump, which I discovered required the use of the scissors. Those edges were sharp.  I tried to use my fingers to separate the layers.    Pause for a bandaid. The initial dose is two caplets.  I examined the situation more closely and realized that I was supposed to pull the piece I'd folded.  In doing so, it revealed that it was attached to the paper covering the gel cap and was perfectly capable of revealing the damn thing if I'd only follow directions. This is what it looked like from the other side. There's no way I could have anticip...

One of my favorite holiday posts, recycled year after year.  Enjoy yourselves... even if just for a moment.   My Zaydeh was a paperhanger. So was his son, my Uncle Paul. They belonged to the Paperhanger's Union. When he retired, my Zaydeh got a lapel pin and a photograph of himself and the also-retiring Union Rep. The Union Rep got a pension and health insurance. No one knows if he got a copy of the photograph, too. It was that kind of complicated relationship to Labor, with a capital L, that dominated my growing up years. Daddooooo's father owned a business. G'ma's father was a worker. That dynamic influenced their relationship in the same way that her parents' accented speech and his parents' religious devotion were there, bruising the edges of what must once have been love but wasn't anymore. I sat on my Zaydeh's shoulders as he bounced me around the living room, singing Zum Gali Gali , a Zionist work song with one line, repeated over and over: the pi...

With temperatures in the 90's and no rain in the forecast, it was tine to reopen the garden..  A substitute teacher decided that it was her job to prune the mandarin orange tree.  This little one is deep watering the remains. The big shovel and the trowels were handy for digging, and the wheelbarrow was primed for traveling.....  once they found the wheels. Without much instruction, they set to work weeding and turning over the beds. We have serious weeds and roots. The garden scholars reminded me, once again, that it's impossible to be sad when surrounded by little ones.  They are the best therapy on the planet.

It's been a marvelous monsoon this year.  Days of rain, nights of lightning and thunder and more rain, drizzles on the occasional afternoon - it's a monsoon to revel in. It also makes taking photos from the car somewhat challenging.  But, stopped at a long traffic light at a busy intersection, I found something worth memorializing.   I have been wondering how to counter the giant Ciscomani signs polluting our streets. Someone had a great idea.  These are now appearing all over town.  Subtle.  Snarky.  Eye catching.  It makes me very happy.    

The mistletoe was killing the trees.  Pooped out by birds as they nest or roost on limbs and twigs, the hemi-parasite (kinda sorta a parasite, sucking nutrients from the host, living on top instead of setting its own roots in the ground) infested much of the canopy of most of my trees. It's too high up for me.  I don't go up on ladders any more, nor do I climb up into the tree itself. It's too sticky and difficult to remove for me.  There's white goo oozing from every cut.  Tools must be cleaned between excisions to prevent the parasite from traveling.  It causes a rash when your fingers brush up against it. It's been triple digits outside for weeks.  The mistletoe has flourished while I wilted and raced indoors. So, I began the search for reputable tree trimmers.  Yelp, friends, Google... they were all recruited in my search.  No human I knew could recommend anyone;  They showed up on time  was the highest compliment I heard.  Seve...

We laughed and ate and swam and had a wonderful time during Big Cuter's Family Adventure in Tucson.  Everything was perfect, except for one thing.  We failed, miserably, when we tried to find something to put on the television. It was August, so there were no real sports to be watched or rewatched or dissected ad nauseum.  West Wing doesn't speak to Queen T the way it does to the rest of us.  Big Cuter is not a fan of rom coms.  The classic movies were either boring or ones we could recite by heart.  I wanted something with more action than plot.  Big Cuter suggested Deadpool and Wolverine , and since I'll never give up a chance to look at Hugh Jackman, I was all for it.  If you haven't seen it (and why would you, unless you're totally enmeshed with the Marvel Universe), think self-parodying, brightly colored, cartoon villains who cannot die.   Heads are sliced off, guts are punctured by all manner of sharp objects, arms and legs go flyi...